Mr. Romney and his wife take regular walks around La Jolla, exchanging pleasantries with fellow strollers and occasionally enforcing the law. A young man in town recalled that Mr. Romney confronted him as he smoked marijuana and drank on the beach last summer, demanding that he stop.

The issue appears to be a recurring nuisance for the Romneys. Mr. Quint, who lives on the waterfront near Mr. Romney, said that a police officer had asked him, on a weekend when the candidate was in town, to report any pot smoking on the beach. The officer explained to him that "your neighbors have complained," Mr. Quint recalled. "He was pretty clear that it was the Romneys."

Can you imagine being high and having Mitt Romney come up and ask you to stop smoking, in that weird clearly-really-angry-but-trying-to-act-jovial way of his? (Still, better than a forced haircut.) The president would just "intercept," and then send the Justice Department to shut you down.